When will Hi-Fi mags admit some products are overpriced?

[zippy]

It would be good if reviews always published some sort of cost/benefit score rather than just a 'good/bad' indication.
You'd expect a £1000 item to be better than a £100 item, what is more valuable is to also know how that £1000 item compares with other £1000 items.
Also the 'how good' scales seem too vague - in one hifi mag I sometimes read, almost every piece of equipment rates between 85% and 95%.

OK that's my rant over.

 

[Julf]

Hifi News has a number of reviewers with technical qualifications.

Editor Paul Miller has a Chemistry degree and post grad research experience. He has also developed test gear used by the mag and others.

Keith Howard has a Biophysics degree and MSc in neurocommunication. Plus does the loudspeaker measurements. He has written a number of technical pieces.

Adam Smith has an electronics degrees (or an acoustics degree) and has worked in the industry on loudspeakers.

True - HiFi News does have some people with a relevant background. But only some. I don't see Adam featured as part of their "Meet the Team" profiles, or "Expert lineup" any more. Steve Harris is an English Studies major, John Bamford is journalism/market communication, Ken Kessler started with "Custom car", Barry Fox, Steve Sutherland and Andrew Everard are all journalists with no technical background, as far as I can tell.

 

[tomh]

It would be good if reviews always published some sort of cost/benefit score rather than just a 'good/bad' indication.
You'd expect a £1000 item to be better than a £100 item, what is more valuable is to also know how that £1000 item compares with other £1000 items.
Also the 'how good' scales seem too vague - in one hifi mag I sometimes read, almost every piece of equipment rates between 85% and 95%.

OK that's my rant over.

Actually disagree, I don’t see value for money as an objective criteria. It is dependant on your disposable income. Magazines should just print the review and the price and let the reader decide if it represents good value.

 

[onlyconnect]

Actually disagree, I don’t see value for money as an objective criteria. It is dependant on your disposable income. Magazines should just print the review and the price and let the reader decide if it represents good value.

VFM is not objective but it is something where an informed opinion is welcome; and that is a legitimate part of a review.

If a piece of equipment is in performance terms no better than one costing say 1000x less, then I think that is something most readers would want to know. If someone still wants to buy it as a form of jewellery/bling that is fine and entirely up to them of course. However if someone buys it believing it will reveal new levels of definition, micro-dynamics and inky blacks they have been misled.

Tim

 

[Rockmeister]

I love inky blacks; I get them sometimes about 3am after a hard night on the booze and drugs.
The snowy whites and the smokey greys get less mention. Shame, since they are equally full of boll....s.

 

[tomh]

VFM is not objective but it is something where an informed opinion is welcome; and that is a legitimate part of a review.

If a piece of equipment is in performance terms no better than one costing say 1000x less, then I think that is something most readers would want to know. If someone still wants to buy it as a form of jewellery/bling that is fine and entirely up to them of course. However if someone buys it believing it will reveal new levels of definition, micro-dynamics and inky blacks they have been misled.

Tim

Problem is that if you are so far gone that you think an eight grand kettle lead *might* offer good value then I doubt a magazine sayings it’s a rip off will change your mind.

But whatever I don’t read Hifi mags anyway.

 

[SCIDB]

True - HiFi News does have some people with a prelevant background. But only some. I don't see Adam featured as part of their "Meet the Team" profiles, or "Expert lineup" any more. Steve Harris is an English Studies major, John Bamford is journalism/market communication, Ken Kessler started with "Custom car", Barry Fox, Steve Sutherland and Andrew Everard are all journalists with no technical background, as far as I can tell.

Hi,
Not all the reviewers are featured in the " Meet the team", most are not. Adam has reviewed many items in Hifi News. There are others who write reviews that don't or may not have technical qualifications such as David Price and Cliff Joseph.

Barry Fox has technical qualifications. He learnt electronics in the RAF. He went to Oxford university as well He usually writes about technology and doesn't review Hifi as a rule.

Steve Sutherland writes about artists and albums as he used to work for the NME and Melody Maker.

Andrew Everard has an English degree

All the objective measurements are done by Paul Miller and Keith Howard.

 

[Julf]

Andrew Everard has an English degree.

I kind of noticed. I almost gave up my subscription because of him. He seems to have learned the technical buzzwords, but doesn't quite know what they mean.

 

[Alex S]

I think he meant has a degree of English.

 

[Dozey]

Barry Fox does have a technical background. He is a failed patent attorney. You need a technical degree to enter the training.

 

[Julf]

Barry Fox does have a technical background. He is a failed patent attorney. You need a technical degree to enter the training.

Too bad he doesn't seem to do reviews.

 

[Dozey]

"He (Barry Fox) graduated from Oxford University after spending two years in the British Royal Air Force on electronics work. He trained as a UK patent attorney, then moved into full time journalism, writing about new inventions and all aspects of technology, but specializing in consumer and entertainment electronics including audio, video, radio, TV, satellite, telecoms and computers."

 

[Julf]

Finally the March issue of HiFi news arrived here. It amused me to read the review of the Metaxas Macrophone speakers (£25,000 small standmounts that look like they were props for "War of the Worlds", but made using inches instead of feet as measure, just like in "Spinal Tap") by Ken Kessler. It starts with the normal KK rant about how people who don't understand that high-end hifi is a luxury market where looks matter are "hairshirt purists", then has a lot of "information" that is quoted directly from the manufacturer sales literature (to the extent of being prefixed with "Metaxas informs us), and then goes on to a long, gushing subjective "review" that likens the speakers to Mk 1 Wilson WATTs. In the Verdict session, he notes "This is, unapologetically, a small transducer, yet its sonic virtues demand different criteria than one would apply to a conventional compact two-way". Different criteria definitely, considering the Lab Report by Keith Howard shows a very uneven frequency response, extremely pronounced low-treble hump, and really nasty, undamped resonances all over the place.

 

[Still]

I love inky blacks; I get them sometimes about 3am after a hard night on the booze and drugs.
The snowy whites and the smokey greys get less mention. Shame, since they are equally full of boll....s.

Community advisory: booze is a drug.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

The way that so many audiophiles seem to want to be bullshitted, bamboozled and hornswoggled is what gets me... Meaningless pseudo-scientific advertising copy and journalistic opinion is swallowed hook, line and sinker, including things which are impossible and things which would make anyone with genuine technical knowledge laugh out loud. This has been so successful for the marketing men etc that many things which are tenuous at best, and in some cases simply impossible, are now accepted as 100% true and "accepted best practice" by the vast majority of enthusiasts.

On VFM of high end hi fi well they are prime examples of Veblen goods... There is an interesting thread elsewhere on pfm comparing some very expensive amplifiers from Naim, Vitus and Luxman etc. I believe the Naim pre and power is £27,000. Apart from being technically bog standard textbook circuitry it is also typical of topologies dating from around 1973, and having been used by Naim since around that time has hardly needed any R&D input! The total cost of components in the pre and power would come to something like £300 - 400 tops. Lets be generous and say the casework comes to as much again (it won't). So how do we end up with a £27K price tag? Clever marketing people creating a perception that a particular brand is worth that much for much the same reasons that a painting can be worth £20 or £20 million because of who painted it.

Hypothetically speaking, someone could build an amp in which the internals were an exact copy of the £27K Naim and it obviously sounds exactly the same (as it is exactly the same). For the sake of argument it's built just as well and although it has different styling it is aesthetically pleasing.
How much is it worth? £1200? £2000? Certainly you would be laughed at if you tried to get £27K for it!

Tell people enough times how wonderful a product is, place advertising in glossy magazines, buy the right reviewers and industry pundits, go to international hi fi shows where you have impressive displays etc, get dealers to spin the right spiel and preferably stay around long enough to be regarded as well established and now the magic happens... A collection of electronic components and casework with a material value of £700, made into an amplifier which if it was produced identically by "Joe Bloggs Hi Fi" would sell for say £2000 is now miraculously "worth" £27,000.

Simple as that.

 

[Romulus]

With reviews and official HiFi Mags it does not really matter wether the reviewer has relevant qualifications or not. To date I have not read a single review which admitted that a component is over priced. The reviewer may say (they do it quite often because its safe for them) that the someone may be 'put off' because of the expensive asking price but if you can afford it its worth every penny or cent...! I think to some degree there is a certain politics involved between reviewer, the advertising income and reputation of the magazine to prospective brands and readers. If reviewers were blatantly honest about HiFi, they may obtain a certain reputation of integrity among readers, but most probably play havoc to the others in relation to the HiFi market. If we were blatantly honest about views or anything to our colleagues or work colleagues you may probably hurt a few feelings and also become deeply unpopular among others. In HiFi reviews of magazines no matter what kind of reviewer writes it, the common denominator I usually detect behind the words is 'diplomacy' so as to not openly offend anyone.

 

[Rockmeister]

The way that so many audiophiles seem to want to be bullshitted, bamboozled and hornswoggled is what gets me... Meaningless pseudo-scientific advertising copy and journalistic opinion is swallowed hook, line and sinker, including things which are impossible and things which would make anyone with genuine technical knowledge laugh out loud. This has been so successful for the marketing men etc that many things which are tenuous at best, and in some cases simply impossible, are now accepted as 100% true and "accepted best practice" by the vast majority of enthusiasts.

On VFM of high end hi fi well they are prime examples of Veblen goods... There is an interesting thread elsewhere on pfm comparing some very expensive amplifiers from Naim, Vitus and Luxman etc. I believe the Naim pre and power is £27,000. Apart from being technically bog standard textbook circuitry it is also typical of topologies dating from around 1973, and having been used by Naim since around that time has hardly needed any R&D input! The total cost of components in the pre and power would come to something like £300 - 400 tops. Lets be generous and say the casework comes to as much again (it won't). So how do we end up with a £27K price tag? Clever marketing people creating a perception that a particular brand is worth that much for much the same reasons that a painting can be worth £20 or £20 million because of who painted it.

Hypothetically speaking, someone could build an amp in which the internals were an exact copy of the £27K Naim and it obviously sounds exactly the same (as it is exactly the same). For the sake of argument it's built just as well and although it has different styling it is aesthetically pleasing.
How much is it worth? £1200? £2000? Certainly you would be laughed at if you tried to get £27K for it!

Tell people enough times how wonderful a product is, place advertising in glossy magazines, buy the right reviewers and industry pundits, go to international hi fi shows where you have impressive displays etc, get dealers to spin the right spiel and preferably stay around long enough to be regarded as well established and now the magic happens... A collection of electronic components and casework with a material value of £700, made into an amplifier which if it was produced identically by "Joe Bloggs Hi Fi" would sell for say £2000 is now miraculously "worth" £27,000.

Simple as that.

But then, would your copy be in a hideous box? A bit like an IKEA eco coffin but with green patches? And wouldn't it be much much better if it DID cost 10X the price you mention...as someone said near here recently, 'well, it cost more, so surely it must be betterer?'
And there it is.
But we are not gullible, oh no, just being FREE (WooHoo) to indulge in our hobby.
My new hobby is balloon animal making, but unless you have the right rubber, that which was treated by cryogenically tuned bushbabies, you are never going to see those mystic animal shapes spring to life before your eyes. Ordinary rubber makes balloons that just kinda, blow up...pffff. Cryogenic BB rubber makes the whole surface shimmer.....AND I paid £57 per balloon. Makes sense huh?
zzzzzzzz

 

[John Phillips]

Finally the March issue of HiFi news arrived here. It amused me to read the review of the Metaxas Macrophone speakers (£25,000 small standmounts that look like they were props for "War of the Worlds", but made using inches instead of feet as measure, just like in "Spinal Tap") by Ken Kessler.

Metaxas? Aren't they the people who make amplifiers which whenever I see them make me feel like cowering behind the sofa as they menace Dr. Who?

 

[narabdela]

Metaxas? Aren't they the people who make amplifiers which whenever I see them make me feel like cowering behind the sofa as they menace Dr. Who?

Metaxas and Sins presumably? I was chatting to Kostas at the Birmingham show last year. Really nice guy, but his gear is batshit crazy, both in design and cost.

 

[mrkaramba]

Currently, definitely the headphones market i overprices by an enormous margin. Around 10-15 years ago, Sennheisers HD600/650 were told to be true hi-end headphones, and when they (or Sony) released some model which was costing (it was around 10 years ago) like 1200USD, they more most expensive headphones ever made and were more of a show phone than mass marketed thing.

Today we can see that normal good phones costs anything between 500-800 pounds, and hi end are for 3-4k pounds. It's absolutely insane where that market went and how everything changed their pricing and how certain products are considered as only good instead of hi-end.

For me it's hilarious paying the price of Leema Tucana II or MF6500i for Focal phones.